The invention relates to a hydraulic fire door, especially a sliding door, which can be selectively opened or closed, the fire door being provided with an actuator for moving the door from an opened position to a closed position.
Hydraulic fire doors are known. They are generally, i.e. not in the event of fire, used together with door openings, which are kept open. When fire occurs or when flue gases are created, the fire doors are closed in order to prevent the fire or flue gases from spreading.
If a fire door needs to be highly resistant in high temperatures, the door is correspondingly dimensioned and made of a material or materials that endure high temperatures. Therefore the fire door surfaces are typically made of steel. Steel fire doors do not allow to monitor the fire and/or flue gases through the door. The people possibly behind the closed steel doors cannot either be seen. Transparency would, however, help to evaluate how far the fire and flue gases have spread, and also to observe the people, which naturally is of advantage in the event of fire. The massive weight of steel makes the steel doors heavy. Where applied, for example on ships, the massive weight of the fire doors is a significant drawback. Known fire doors are provided with hydraulic pipe system and control systems that render the hydraulic fire doors fairly expensive.
The invention also relates to a fire protection system comprising a fire extinguishing system and a hydraulic fire door, more particularly to a sliding door, which can be selectively opened or closed, the fire door being provided with an actuator for moving the door from an opened position to a closed position. The fire protection system typically comprises several spray heads and fire doors. These fire doors are also associated with the problems described above.
The fire doors including hydraulic systems are notably constructed as systems separate from fire extinguishing systems, so that a piston cylinder unit in the fire doors comprising feeding pipes and a control system are placed apart in a pipe system and a control system of the fire protection system, consequently rendering the fire protection system very expensive.
It is an object of the invention to provide a hydraulic fire door having an improved fire resistance and irrespective thereof the fire door can if desired be made of a material whose fire resistance is not particularly good.
This is achieved with a fire door of the invention characterized in that the actuator is arranged to supply liquid. For said purpose the present invention provides for a hydraulic fire door, especially a sliding door, which can be selectively opened or closed, the fire door being provided with an actuator for moving the door from an opened position to a closed position, wherein the actuator is arranged to supply aqueous liquid to the fire door in order to cool it using the aqueous liquid. The liquid to be employed in the actuator is used to close the door. A facing surface of the door is preferably cooled; the term facing surface referring in this context to any large door surface. The facing surface may be an outer surface or an inner surface.
The most significant advantages of the fire door of the invention are that the fire resistance thereof is very good without the heat resistance of the basic structure thereof, i.e. the frame or face surfaces of the door, having to be particularly good, in which case the fire door may, for example, be transparent and made of glass, and that an actuator, such as a piston cylinder unit, is utilized for improving the fire resistance thereof in order to cool the door, whereby the fire door and the apparatus cooling the door are formed of a compact unit.
The fire protection system of the invention is characterized in that the actuator is arranged to supply aqueous liquid to the fire door in order to cool it using the aqueous liquid. Present invention provides for a fire protection system comprising a fire extinguishing system and a hydraulic fire door, especially a sliding door, which can be selectively opened or closed, the fire door being provided with an actuator for moving the fire door from an opened position to a closed position, wherein the actuator is arranged to feed aqueous liquid to the fire door in order to cool it using the aqueous liquid.
Most preferably the actuator is connected with a line in the fire extinguishing system for supplying said liquid through an output starting from the actuator and a feeding channel to the upper part of the fire door and from there further to the facing surface of the fire door. Thus the large surfaces of the doors can from the beginning be evenly cooled, as the cooling is most efficient there where the temperature most likely is the highest in the event of fire.
The line is preferably the one leading to the spray heads of a fire extinguishing or fire fighting system, since the lines intended for the spray heads are then utilized as well as the pressures therein when closing and cooling the door, and the door hydraulics is not different from the fire extinguishing hydraulics. This allows great cost savings to be made.
The actuator is preferably a piston cylinder unit comprising a piston and a cylinder, since the structure of such a unit is simple.
The most significant advantage of the fire protection system according to the invention is that in addition to the fire extinguishing system it comprises a fire door, whose fire resistance is very good without the heat resistance of the basic structure thereof, i.e. the frame or facing surfaces of the door, having to be particularly good, in which case the fire door may, for example, be made of glass, or be transparent, and that the actuator is utilized for improving the fire resistance of the fire door (for cooling the door), the fire door and the apparatus cooling the door thus forming a compact unit. As the actuator is also connected to a line leading to the spray heads in the fire extinguishing system, great cost savings are made, since the lines in the fire protection system are greatly reduced as well as the need for control.